


Into the Fire

by IohannaFacTotum



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angry Kissing, Arguing, Comfort, M/M, Sloppy Makeouts, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 04:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2296385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IohannaFacTotum/pseuds/IohannaFacTotum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erwin has escaped death for the time being, but when Levi expresses his displeasure with Erwin's "martyr complex," he soon finds that he has made his way out of the frying pan and into the fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to tumblr user rainbowdowneyjr for the prompt and for beta reading for me! Thanks, babe!
> 
> As always, comments and feedback are much appreciated!

With a slow creak and quiet _thump_ , a closing door was the only warning Erwin had before short, booted footsteps made their way across the floor towards him in a too-even, too-controlled rhythm. Even so, he did not turn from the window looking out at the innermost courtyard of the castle. He didn’t have to pry his eyes from the well-kept gardens and winding brook to know precisely what was coming.

Had it been anyone else, the quiet may have been mistaken for politeness or amiability or respect. With Levi, however, as Erwin had grown to realize over the years, quiet meant danger. The only thing he could think comparable to Levi’s fury was the desolation of the wall of Shiganshina five years prior. Peace and false security until the threat was imminent and entirely too close to be stopped.

But that was quite alright, Erwin thought. He had ire of his own, and it was even more difficult to detect.

The footsteps stopped behind Erwin, though he still did not turn. There was a thick, weighted silence that seemed to bare down on them for a moment, and he could only imagine the scowl on that tiny, childlike face, the way the thin eyebrows drew together and the way his lip curled back in a sneer.

“What the hell were you thinking?” came the murmured accusation, and Erwin could hear the control in his voice, and the ferocity boiling under it.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“It didn’t occur to you,” Levi continued as if uninterrupted, his voice growing more and more firm as he struggled to control his tone, “it didn’t cross your mind, not even for a moment, to clue me in, just this once?”

“I was relying on you to-“

“ _Trust_ you. I know.”

Turning at last from the window, Erwin met Levi’s stony gaze. “It’s never been a problem in the past for you to trust me.”

Levi ‘s eyes narrowed and he folded his arms over his chest, digging his fingers into his upper arm as if to keep them from acting on their own and enacting some violent impulse. “This was different,” he said flatly through clenched teeth.

Erwin kept his gaze locked on Levi, refusing to break eye contact. Levi lost this game most of the time and was the first to turn away, usually with a scoff and some underhanded comment, but this time, he matched Erwin’s stare with frightening intensity. “Was it?” Erwin finally asked, and he watched Levi’s face warp into a sneer even as he spoke. “Was this truly any different than any other time I have asked you to put your trust in me in dangerous situations?”

“You were headed to the _gallows_.” Levi’s arms fell from his chest and his fingers curled into fists at his sides. He stepped forward, so close to the former commander now that their chests nearly touched when they swelled with breath. “I was convinced you were gone. You handed down the Survey Corps to Hanji, of all people. Had you handed it down to me, I would have known better, I would have known you would be back to reclaim it. As far as I could _trust_ , Erwin,” he spat, “you weren't coming back.”

“I was prepared to die, if it was necessary.” Erwin was calm, collected, though his patience was growing thinner.

“Being prepared to die and laying yourself on death’s fucking doormat are two entirely different things,” the captain snarled. He reached up and jabbed Erwin’s chest with a finger. “You’re fucking sick. You have some sort of martyr complex.” It was still far from yelling, but with every word and every jab, Levi’s voice increased in volume. Erwin had only ever heard it so loud and firm in the throes of combat. “You have this insane need to sacrifice your life, and you nearly actually got yourself _killed_.”

Erwin’s hand caught Levi’s by the wrist so quickly that it left the latter silent. Finger still on the blond’s chest, Levi looked from Erwin to his hand and back before trying to jerk himself free. Erwin held firm, though, and Levi could feel the skin beneath those large fingers bruising with every struggle. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Erwin drew his eyebrows together, and he kept Levi pinned with his stare. “Levi, my life is worth no more than anyone else’s,” he started, and Levi rolled his eyes and started to turn away. This was a speech he had heard before and understood all too well, but Erwin gripped his wrist tighter to regain the shorter man’s attention. “Including those of the Military Police.”

That seemed to catch him off guard, and Levi’s face betrayed his shock at the sudden turn. Erwin took the opportunity to continue. “How many of them did you kill, Levi? And how many was it necessary to kill? Did you even pause to consider the consequences?” He released Levi’s hand at last, watching it lower slowly to his side again.

“Are you implying –”

“What I am implying is that you nearly turned this from a coup to an all-out war!” Erwin barked. “Had everyone else’s timing – Hanji’s, Zachley’s, even mine – not been perfect, imagine the loss of life humanity would have had to endure, mine and yours included. The court seemed to find the murders a valid reason alone to hang the both of us. Did you consider that?” Levi’s face was unreadable and he was strangely silent, showing no intention of interjecting or answering the question, so Erwin pressed on. “The belief that I am going to die is no reason to throw away your own life, or the lives of your subordinates, or even those of other factions. Perhaps I am too eager to throw away my own life for humanity’s survival, but have you stopped to consider you’re too willing to risk –”

The rest of Erwin’s harsh words were lost as his subordinate gripped the front of his shirt and yanked him forward, locking their lips together viciously.

“Shut up,” Levi snarled between ragged, desperate kisses. “Just for once,” he breathed, “stop fucking talking.”

Erwin eagerly obliged and returned Levi’s advances with equal fervor as the shorter man shoved him up against the stony windowsill and dug his fingers into messy blond hair with so much force that he had to use his hand to steady himself against the stone.

Despite the tension and anger, Erwin couldn’t stop a smile from tugging at his lips, and Levi huffed in protest. Between Levi’s brief, fevered assaults, he managed to mutter, “I’ll have to scare you more often if this is the consequence.”

Fury reignited, Levi shoved Erwin again with an angry growl, forcing him back onto the windowsill. It never failed to surprise him how much strength could be hidden away in such a small body, and it left him wondering how he could be so strong and yet so nimble, both with the 3DMG and in moments like this, where in one swift motion, Levi managed to climb the windowsill and jump into Erwin’s lap, his knees locked around the larger man’s hips, all without breaking contact with his lips.

Erwin’s arm found its way around the small waist and with very little coercion, Levi pressed himself closer, rocking his hips forward as he twined his fingers through Erwin’s hair and tugged, holding him in place. Teeth grazed the commander’s lip and it set his nerves on fire, pooled warmth in the pit of his stomach.

The sudden intimacy after such a period of deprivation and pain only made Erwin more sensitive, more _hungry_ , and he took the opportunity of Levi’s parted lips to slip his tongue inside, memorize all over again all of the cracks and crevices of the man’s mouth with fevered intensity and for once, Levi relinquished control without a fight.

The victory was short-lived, however, and Levi shifted his weight, rolling his hips down and grinding against Erwin. His fruitful efforts earned him a muffled moan, and Erwin could feel the heat in his stomach beginning to manifest in other forms. He knew he should protest, but couldn’t find the power to do so, especially with the way Levi’s lips curled in a fierce pseudo-smile as he began nipping and sucking again, this time taking it upon himself to move from Erwin’s lips up the strong, square jawline, then to his earlobe.

Levi found it comforting, the familiarity of Erwin’s lips and jaw, but was dismayed to find them in some places swollen and bruised. It only served to fuel his fury more – the fact that Erwin had put himself in a situation to earn such wounds, but even more so the thought of someone besides Levi himself taking it upon themselves to leave such marks all over him. It sparked a fire in him and his kisses became rougher, more possessive, and his teeth grazed and nipped harshly at Erwin’s neck, ear, shoulder, as if leaving bruises of his own could erase the pain of the others.

The vicious assault elicited gasps and moans and soft hisses of pain and pleasure. Erwin dug his fingers into Levi’s back, savoring the familiar way it arched and Levi pressed flush against him. He felt Levi’s fingernails dig into his shoulders in kind before his hands wandered down Erwin’s chest, easily felt through the thin shirt he’d been given after being stripped of his uniform. Levi traced the lines of Erwin’s body as if by memory, as if in his mind they were as perfectly mapped out as the plains and hills between Maria and the Forest, He began to follow with his lips.

His teeth brushed against a hardening nipple and Erwin thrust his hips up into Levi. In response, Levi removed his hands from Erwin’s chest and ferociously pinned his hips down against the stone with a growl. Erwin couldn’t help but smile – even during all of this, Levi was still pissed.

When he returned his attention to Erwin’s chest, Levi began lifting his shirt to more thoroughly study the hard lines of the body beneath and continued to kiss his way down.

He only paused when he tasted copper, and Erwin let out a low hiss. A shallow laceration, still red and inflamed, spanned a portion of the right side of Erwin’s chest, and Levi stopped at last, pulling away to study the damage done. Bruises and cuts of varying severity littered the normally flawless skin, and Levi’s expression at seeing them for the first time was indeterminate. After only seconds, he returned his mouth to Erwin’s.

The turnaround was nothing short of incredible, and Erwin had never experienced something so sudden, especially from Levi. His kisses, though no less needy and passionate, were gentle as his hands reached up to hold Erwin’s face and run his thumbs over his swollen cheeks. His fingers ran slowly through Erwin’s hair before falling behind his back, with Levi’s arms draped over his shoulders as if in a lazy, exhausted embrace.

With a sigh and a smile, Erwin nuzzled his face into the crook of Levi’s neck and shoulder, planting soft kisses there and savoring the rare moment.

“I wasn’t scared,” Levi finally grumbled, and for a second, Erwin was still too dazed to understand that Levi was simply continuing their previous conversation.

“You were just worried you were going to lose me,” he replied smugly, and when Levi was silent, a smile pulled at one side of his lips.

“Tch.” With a scoff, Levi folded his arms and turned his head. “Don’t get a big head about it. You preach an awful lot about humanity, but you don’t realize that without you, humanity would be in a shit state.”

To Erwin’s disdain, Levi slid off of his lap, though not before grinding one more time down onto the bulge in his pants, as if in punishment. He headed towards the door and Erwin whined audibly.

With a pause, Levi threw a cold glance over his shoulder at Erwin, seemingly ignoring his current state. “Will I be able to find you in your office later or did you give that to Hanji, too?” Erwin nearly missed the mischievous light that lit the thin, gray eyes.

With a defeated sigh and a half-smile, Erwin chuckled. “I think I can talk them into giving it back.”

Levi’s only reply was a curt nod, though Erwin thought he might have seen the ghost of a smile on his captain’s thin lips before he turned and left Erwin to imagine the work that would be awaiting him later in that office.

 


End file.
